‘Unhealthy’ air quality expected in eastern Minnesota through Monday afternoon due to wildfire smoke

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness permit cancellations are still in place through Friday, but state and federal officials said in an update Wednesday that they are working on a plan to reduce that closure. 

“We are coordinating with our partner agencies, specifically thinking about what are those other types of resources that are needed to make that a successful place to be open to the public,” said Tom Hall, agency administrator for the U.S. Forest Service.

Hall said the ability to conduct search and rescue operations is “probably one of those key pieces, given that burden that is on the three counties' sheriff's offices at this point, and the amount of work that they're putting into closures and evacuation.”

He said staff are looking at what corridors of the Boundary Waters would be the best candidates to open up so that people can still experience it “and also not be in the way in those fire operations.”

The BWCA permit cancellations fall under a wider order. Hall said when Forest Service Closures are enacted, they have an end date, at which point they expire. The current expiration date is Oct. 1. Officials said that does not mean that all BWCA permit cancellations extend until that deadline.

“Any place that it is lifted, those places would then be open and those permits associated where we lift that closure would then still be valid for what we have not already canceled,” he said.

The update on permits came amid a broader status update on the wildfires burning across northeastern Minnesota into Canada. 

Hall said those fires have not been very active over the last few days.

“So there's been really good progress at containment on each of these fires, whether those are plans to insert crews or those are direct lines that have been put in place … while we have this cooler, wetter weather,” he said.

But Hall cautioned that there is potential for extreme conditions in the near future, “knowing that we're going into August and into September when fire conditions are expected to continue to get worse.”

In a press release, officials from the Superior National Forest shared that the “combined acreage for the July Lightning Incident is 63,594 acres in the United States and an additional 8,412 acres in Canada.” Personnel working on the fires is nearing 1,000 people.

Jason Loomis, an incident commander with a federal wildfire management team, said during the briefing that the geographic area sits at a Wildfire Preparedness Level 4, a notch below the national level of 5. 

“And so what that's doing is it's creating a little bit of a lag time for us to get the resources that we need to insert into the wilderness to take a little bit more direct action,” he said.

The tiered system, which ranges from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) is used by wildland fire agencies to measure things like fire activity, weather, fuel conditions and resource availability.  

Loomis said they’re starting to see some more resources trickle in. And once teams get their Boundary Waters canoe training, they “will start inserting those folks into strategic areas of the fire, most notably on the north east corner there, and then certainly down on the southern flank.”

He said the resources coming in currently include the Great Lakes Wildland Fire Module unit, “which are experts in backcountry and wilderness fire management. They're a combination of highly skilled operators, but also highly skilled intelligence gatherers.”

Loomis said elite hotshot crews are also getting deployed.

During the briefing, officials said northern Minnesota saw as much as three quarters of an inch of rain on the wildfires since Monday. The highest amounts fell on the Thumb and Camp fires. 

However, most of the state is still facing drought conditions.

“The locals have a saying specifically: when it's not raining, it's drying. So that's kind of the theme that we're continuing to talk about for the next several days,” said Katie Fleegel with the National Weather Service.

Temperatures were in the low 60s on Tuesday, but were expected to get back into the mid 80s heading into the weekend.

Meanwhile, smoke from the wildfires burning in northeast Minnesota may finally be easing up, which means some reprieve for those living in the area. 

Josh Hall, air resource advisor assisting the Forest and Incident Management Team, cautioned that as the state enters into hotter, drier periods, the wildfires are still far from being over.  

“I think the the message is good air quality now, but we'll keep an eye on the fires and would expect with with more smoke from these fires later in the summer to see increased impacts in this area,” he said. “But for right now, it's looking very good.”

NewsPartners

Homepage

Disasters

Minnesota Wildfires

Live updates: Wildfires in Minnesota

MPR News Staff

Author

Officials said any reopening will depend on factors including search-and-rescue capacity and ensuring public access does not interfere with ongoing wildfire operations.

BWCA permit cancellations remain through Friday, officials consider partial reopening

Go Deeper.

Like this?

News you can use in your inbox